“The next game is most important now,” says the skipper

4 December 2016

Captain on defeat to Fulham

A heavy defeat always leaves people feeling sore - players and fans alike. But Reading captain Paul McShane knows the best healer will be a good reaction and a good performance in the next fixture – and we have a chance to get back on the winning track against Sheffield Wednesday next weekend.

“It was a bad loss and we didn’t get going at all,” admitted the Irishman after our 5-0 defeat in Fulham. “It was a long afternoon, and that’s why we’ve got to pick ourselves up, take our medicine and come back more hungry to put things right in the next game.

“The next game is the most important now. We’ve got a full week until Sheffield Wednesday – we’ve got a few days together where we’ll talk about things and look at the game and what went wrong – and then a lot of work out on the training pitch.

“There’s a long way to go – we’re lying third at the moment and it takes character and personality to stay there, as well as footballing ability. We want to learn our lessons and move onto the next game with a positive attitude, and be hungry to put things right.”

In spite of the disappointment, the skipper is confident that the team will rouse themselves going into next weekend rather than feeling too dejected.

And he hopes that the team will show that they are deserving to retain their place amongst the league’s front-runners.

“We have to be better at what we’re doing,” he continued. “We do realise that teams will be ready for us, but Fulham set up well. It was a combination of them being set up well and a lot of individual mistakes from us, which gave them a good start to the game.

“Every time you lose like this, there is a big lesson to be learned. We have had a good run with five wins on the bounce, and this really disappointing loss. We’re going to go away and look at it and try to learn from our mistakes and put them right.

“We’ve done that with all the games that we’ve lost this season – gone away, pondered about it, and put the stuff right that went wrong. Hopefully we can do that.

“We can’t let our heads go down too much. It’s a disappointing loss, and 5-0 doesn’t look good. But it’s the manner in which you lose and we lost badly today. So we’ve got to pick ourselves up and not get too disappointed. We want to learn our lessons and move on.

“Fulham are a good team, but we’re above them in the league – which shows we’re a good team also. We have played really well all season… we’ve had losses like these against Brentford and Newcastle, but we’ve got to put them right. We’ll go back to the drawing board and learn from mistakes. You have to keep learning and learning, and how you pick yourself is the most important thing.”